“Where have all the bees gone?” That message, posted years ago in a gallery window during a Downtown Phoenix First Friday street festival, stuck with Ian Horvath, then a high school student known for making chocolate truffles for his friends. He did some digging and discovered scientists were alarmed about a dramatic loss in hives. According to scientists, bee pollination accounts for a third of our food. Although the dramatic losses seen in 2006 have somewhat subsided, the plight of the honeybee is far from over and Horvath hasn’t forgotten.

Fast forward a decade, and Horvath is putting his passion for chocolate and honeybees together in a new “bean-to-bar” chocolate company called Beehive Chocolates. The signature product is called Honey Pots: 70 percent dark chocolate-covered raw honey, in the shape of an individual honeycomb cell. It might seem a little pricey to pay $6 for 5 individual chocolate-honey bombs, but the integrity of the ingredients justifies the cost. Horvath imports cacao beans from fair-trade farms and transforms them from bean to chocolate himself, a process that takes a couple days and requires both science and art. He sources raw honey from a small producer who shares his environment-friendly mindset, and whose Arizona hives are thriving far from city life. Horvath’s company also plans to donate a percentage of the profits for honeybee research and conservation. Purchase the cause-driven treats at The French Grocery in Phoenix or online.